House takes hard line on Humvees

It took massive pressure from Congress early in the Iraq war to ramp up production of the next-generation jeeps. Now the Army has 154,380 in its inventory.

Story Continued Below

After the threat of improvised explosive devices spiked, the Army poured billions into other Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, which can withstand mine and explosive device blasts better than Humvees.

Now the Army wants to stop buying new Humvees and modernize its older ones.

But halting production has been something of a chore and serves as just one example of how difficult it is for the Pentagon to realize Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s stated goal of “turning off the spigot” of defense spending.

AM General, the Indiana-based company that makes the Humvees, and the company’s congressional backers, argue it would cost nearly as much to refurbish old Humvees as it would to buy new ones.

Plus, the National Guard, whose equipment before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was often vintage Vietnam, wants to capture some of the newly made or newly used vehicles.

This week, the House Appropriations Committee upheld the Army’s request to use funding, at least for next year, just for refurbishing the vehicles.

The clash over the Humvees started in February, when Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli announced that the Army would stop buying the jeeps in favor of MRAP vehicles.

“It will not be too long before we will be able to get everybody who can be out of the up-armored Humvee” into the new vehicle, Chiarelli told lawmakers in April.

He tried to move quickly, submitting a Department of Defense request for Congress to approve a shift in funding that included a $573 million cut to a $1.3 billion Humvee-production fund.

Chiarelli planned to “recapitalize” or make like new 5,046 unarmored Humvees at an estimated cost of $55,000 per vehicle and to do the same for 4,270 up-armored Humvees at an estimated cost of between $105,000 and $130,000 per vehicle, according to the Army News Service. That’s about 60 percent of the cost of a brand-new up-armored Humvee, according to a congressional aide.

But that didn’t sit well on the Hill.

AM General has a strong base of support within the Indiana delegation, from the National Guard Association of the U.S. and a key lobbyist — former New Jersey Rep. Jim Saxton, who was the ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee.

Congressional aides and defense lobbyists say the company is trying to keep its production levels high so that it is well positioned for a looming contract battle for the Army’s next-generation Joint Light Tactical Vehicle program.

AM General disputes that notion.

“There are no links” between Humvee production and the competition for the tactical vehicle program, said spokeswoman Celeste Ross. “However, AM General’s considerable experience in manufacturing and supporting light tactical vehicles is one of the strengths” of the company and its partner General Dynamics Land Systems, with which AM General wants to build the vehicle.